8 anti-gay marriage ban, he is here with us live tonight on the day the 9th circuit struck down proposition 8 as unconstitutional. a huge civil rights day in the courts and we have the man of the hour to talk to about it. plus, new york city speaker christine quinn is here on the day the new york giants get their we won the super bowl particularer taip parade, i don't want to hear about it rob, i'm getting teased all day. iraq veterans are looking at the parade and asking why we can do this for football but not mark the end of the iraq war and welcome home the troops. so far michael bloomberg says no to that idea but the other most powerful person in new york besides mayor bloomberg is christine quinn, she says she is for this idea. christine quinn will be joining us tonight. that is all coming up over the course of the hour. but first, as ed mentioned, it is elect shun night again in america. sort of. bringing you results as they come t from the republican presidential primary in missouri, and from the

republican presidential caucuses in minnesota and in colorado. at this hour, polls have closed

>> conservatism is alive and well in missouri and minnesota. your votes today were not just heard loud and wide across the state of missouri and minnesota, but they were heard loud and louder all across this country, and particularly in a play i suspect may be in massachusetts. they were heard particularly loud tonight. >> if ever it was more clear this race is not yet over, that republicans are not satisfied to just pick mitt romney, here is yet another night of proof. joining us is the political news editor at salon.com. in your column today you wrote there's a real chance that tonight will belong to rick santorum. how did you know this might happen? >> that's sort of an understatement.

i was expecting best case two out of three. maybe if just things that at that point happening, he wins all three. at this hour he's ahead big in colorado, and we don't know where the votes are coming from. it's a big story for two reasons tonight. one is santorum's resurgence. you say gingrich is the main opponent of mitt romney. i think there's a chance given the trajectory of gingrich's campaign since florida, i think there's a chance that santorum eclipsing gingrich as that main alternative, after the role he almost had after iowa. he may get it back now. i think the more significant thing here is what this says about mitt romney and his standing as the front-runner. he wants everybody to see him and believe him to be the inevitable candidate in this thing. inevitable candidates don't have nights like this. there are ways to excuse this. with missouri we can say that's a little different because gingrich wasn't on the ballot. i would look at that and say so the gingrich voters decided to vote for rick santorum tonight.

they didn't vote for mitt romney instead. that dynamic we talked about for the entire campaign, you had a little test tonight. the other thing is in minnesota and colorado, caucus states, that's a damaging formula for romney so far. evangelical dominated contests. this is what happened in iowa. that's how santorum won iowa. if he wins colorado, you focus on the family country. you look ahead to super tuesday and say if rick santorum is the consensus alternative and the contest moves to mississippi and tennessee and georgia, it moves to southern states where that evangelical conservatism that's very pronounced, that's where you see it. romney is not winning those people over, and santorum might have a real opportunity there.

>> the real reason i think that mitt romney has been able to hold onto the inevitable candidate title is not because of strength shown by him as a candidate. he's not that great on the stump. he's committed a lot of unforced errors and taken hits in terms of negatives. his favorables and unfavorables are drastically upside-down and getting worse. it's about the perceived nonviability of the candidates? what does he do to make himself the alternative? >> this wasn't much polling in states, but ppp released numbers last night thaerp interesting to me. in all three states today, rick santorum's favorable rating was over 70%. gingrich and romney were both 30%, 40%, 50%. >> high unfavorables? >> yeah, right. in the last few weeks they went after each other so hard and aggressively, gingrich and romney and he sat above the

fray. the romney recipe is rick perry is my main opponent. he we whack him. now it's rick santorum and now it's newt gingrich. now santorum gets that turn in the sfot light again. we'll see how he holds up. >> steve, politics after midnight is not usually this exciting. >> the night is still young. >> thank you. appreciate it. a big night for rick santorum. not a big pan of contraception, and right now the beltway media seems to think that gives rick santorum an advantage over president obama. i find that inexplicable. that's coming up.

a big day for civil rights today. prop 8 taken up today. that got decided today in california. former solicitor-general ted olsen is joining us next, that ups or batting average for getting conservatives on the

show. as the new york giants get a parade iraq veterans call a question whether they deserve a welcome home, too. it was an eight and a half year long way. the debate over the parade issue moves to a new level. that is coming up. plus, you can watch me lose a super bowl bet live on television. please stay with us.

for liberals and for a lot of democrats, the 2008 election of a little bit of a mixed bag. i mean, on the wund hand there was a huge amount of euphoria about a man named senator barack obama winning the presidential

election against john mccain. that was very exciting, and a very big deal for liberals and democrats and for a big swath of the country. less exciting, though, that night was what happened in california. california passed proposition 8, which took away an existing right. before proposition 8, same sex couples have the right to get married in california, and thousands had done so. prop 8 rescinded that right, and it made for a little bit of confusion in the late night coverage that night. >> i believe we have pictures out of san francisco as well. some of the celebration pouring out in the castro district of the city, as it's known. a place near and dear to your heart, chris matthews. >> that may not be sell p brags if it's in the castro and don't have the results in prop 8 yet. prop 8 passed in california in 2008. that rescinded same-sex marriage rights. it was soon challenged in court by a famous odd couple of very,

very big deal american lawyers. two most famous litigators in the country, david boyes was al gore's lawyer and ted olsen was george w. bush's lawyer in that case. a conservative icon and a liberal icon fighting on the same team. they won their first round in federal court with a ruling that proposition 8 was unconstitutional. that was appealed up to the circuit kout, one level below the u.s. supreme court. today we got the ruling fra that circuit court. they found proposition 8 does violate the united states constitution. it is unconstitutional. the court found that proposition 8 served no purpose and had no effect other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in california. joining us now for an exclusive interview is one of those two famous lawyers that got that big win today, former solicitor-general ted olsen. >> i'm no expert on these

matters especially compared to you, but the ruling seems to be narrowly construed to aapply just to the situation in california, to not assert a right to marriage equality more broadly. is that the way that you see it, and did you expect it to come out that way? >> actually, i think it's a very broad decision. let me explain that. in the first place, the court said that california was somewhat unique in that as you said a few moments ago proposition 8 took away the rights of same-sex persons on to get married. but the right exists in many other states now, and people are attempting to take that right away in other states. therefore, this precedent stands for the proposition that once you grant those rights, people have the right to get married, which is a fundamental right in this country. you cannot take it away from those individuals without violating the constitution. but the court went on to stress

with respect to various other issues in the case that there was no justification, there was no rational basis to single out gay and lesbian individuals in this country and take away rights from them or deny rights from them. the court went through every argument that had been made on the other side and systemically dismantled every one of those arguments. so while the court focused on the peculiarities of california, it was quite broad and compelling. >> when the say the court asserted you can't take existing rights away and not deny rights to couples on the basis of sexual orientation, does that mean you see this applying to blazing a legal trail for states in which there are not same-sex marriage rights recognized right now? >> absolutely. because what the court relied upon was a major decision by the united states supreme court

called roamer versus colorado in which colorado had restricted the rights of gay and lesbian individuals, and the supreme court of the united states struck that down as unconstitutional. but both in that roamer case and in this case today, the court said if you're going to select a class of our citizens, these are our citizens that are presumtively entitled to be treated like other citizens and select them out of the basis of characteristics peculiar to them, you have to have a reason for doing so. the reasons articulated by the proponents throughout this litigation were fount completely lacking by the ninth circuit and the court below it. so those principles are going to be very important for states that have not yet recognized a right for individuals to get married to the person they love, who happens to be someone of the same sex. the united states supreme court 40-some years ago struck down a similar prohibition that existed

in 16 states that prohibited people from different races from getting married. in a case called loving versus virginia, 16 state laws were wiped out, laws that would have prevented the president of the united states, his parents, from getting married in virginia in 1967. they would have been guilty of a felony. this decision is very much like that decision. >> you were clear from the beginning that you wanted a case that could win at the supreme court. you wanted a landmark case. as i put words in your mouth, you don't speak that blunty. could that be that case? is this the likely path forward? >> we thought this was an important case that could go all the way to the supreme court. the plaintiffs in this case are individuals who had been in relationships for a long period of time, loving individuals. the lesbian couple have four boys that they're raising in a wonderful household.

the trial had eight expert witnesses testifying about history of discrimination, what it's like to be gay, what it's like to be denied the right to marry. the district judge rendered a meticulous, thorough decision and the ninth circuit did so. this is the issue that should go to the united states supreme court someday. the people that we're representing and others like those people are not asking for anything special. they're asking for the right to be treated with decency and respect and dignity and afforded the same rights that we afford to other citizens in this country. they're not asking for much. just equality. i do think this issue will go to the supreme court. i think it will go to the supreme court in this case, and there could not be a better record or a better foundation for this important principle to get to the supreme court. >> hearing you speak about it in those terms makes me want to, i

guess, put a question to you that causes -- will require a little extrapolation. the mormon church was the main financial back rer and provider of early volunteers to the proposition 8 effort. all the republican candidates for president except for ron paul today put out statements deploring today's ruling that went your way. as a conservative so important in conservative politics, why do you think that hostility to gay rights is still something so utterly mainstream and expected of both mainstream politicians and mainstream institutions in conservative politics today? >> i don't know the answer to your question, rachel, but i think it's terribly unfortunate. marriage is a conservative value, not that conservatives own it or liberals own it. but the loving relationship between individuals that want to be respected by their society and treated as equals is a conservative value. it involves liberty and privacy and association and identity.

marriage is a building block of our society. young people get it. older people are still getting it, but all of the polls are changing. people more and more are understanding that these are american citizens. we have to treat them right, and we have to treat them decently and we have to give them the same freedom and justice that we give to other people. more and more people in america are understanding that. i'm pleased to say na more and more republicans are understanding that. it makes me sad to say that republicans haven't fully understood it, but i think the day will come and every time that we have a chance, david boyes and i have a chance to address this question, we believe we're converting more people and persuading more people that this is the right thing. it is not a conservative or liberal issue or republican or democrat. when we came together on this, our mission was to persuade the american people that this is an

issue of american justice, american freedom, american equality. these are the principles all men are created equal in this country. we have got to get there. >> ted olson, former solicitor-general under george w. bush along with david boyes. thank you so much for joining us tonight and congratulations on your win today. >> thank you so much. >> a programming note. one of the couples represented by ted olson are on the last word with lawrence o'donnell tonight, which is very cool. you have to watch that, okay? deal, deal. joining us now is dahlia litwick. dahlia, thanks for being with us. >> hi, there. >> listen to ted olson, do you agree with his take on whether or not this case goes to the supreme court and how it will do there? >> well, i agree with just about everything he said. i do think it's really important to look back at judge von

walker's 2010 decision and look at how thermonuclear that decision really was. what he did in that opinion, finding a fundamental right to gay marriage, finding an equal protection violation was whittled down by the court today. ironically it looks a little like bush v. gore to me. a little bit like they're saying? states where supreme courts give one the right to marry and then by referendum that right is taken away, someone described it as lucy with the football. you can't put it out there and take it back. in those states where 18,000 couples marry in good faith believing they have the right to marry, you can't take it away. that's a pretty narrow kind of one ride only determination.

i do agree with mr. olson, absolutely the language in this is powerful, so eloquent, it really is -- i remember we talked about this when judge walker's decision came down, rachel. it is a letter to justice kennedy at the court saying please, please, please this looks a lot leem r like your roner language from the colorado case. find that same right of dignity and self-determination for gay couples. it's really important to see what the ninth circuit did not do, which is glowingly uphold everything about judge walker's determination and hand what would have been really a smoking bomb to the supreme court and said, here. the most liberal circuit in the kun, the one that you overturn all the time wants you to have this gift. i think they were too kanne to do that, and i think in the long run that was probably a smart move. >> in terms of the next steps here, to be clear this does not mean that people can start getting married again in california. same sex couples are still not allowed to do that.

that part of that is stayed. what we expect now is a decision by the people who lost today about whether or not they're going to appeal it straight to the supreme court or to a larger group of the ninth circuit. if it goes to the supreme court it looks like it's written directly to anthony kennedy to make him a swing justice. which choice do you think the losers today will make to appeal it, and do you think that's very important? >> it is important. i think that there's some reason to believe they're going to skip taking it to 11 judges in the en banc ninth circuit court and they want to get it to the united states supreme court. this case is in a little bit of a footrace with the defensive marriage cases coming up also being briefed in the federal appeals court. the other moving part is there's another vehicle for deciding some of these issues.

some folks use it for a vehicle. it depends which team you're on and how you want to think about how these cases are framed. there is another case that could possibly be a better case to get in front of justice kennedy. so that's playing out here as well. the truth is there are so many moving parts, and don't forget the supreme court is looking at so many landmark blockbuster cases in the next two years that has to factor into this. whether the supreme court wants to take on another huge megaissue when they're looking at so many right now. >> i feel like it's sort of always a big-time in what's going on the in the judiciary, but for the next year i feel like we need to give you an ankle bracelet and keep you nearby all year long? >> it sounds very attractive. i'll take it. >> thank you, dahlia.

apparently there was a parade today in downtown manhattan for some sports-related thing. i forget the name the of the team. oh, well. and for today at least that means the trifecta of power in new york city is one, maker michael bloomberg and eli manning and three, our next guest. that's coming up.

if you thought the 2012 race

for the republican presidential nomination could not get more volatile or unexpected, tada. in a big night for rick santorum nbc news has projected rick santorum the winner of the nonbinding missouri republican primary. you can see 99% in there. mr. santorum with 55% of the vote. mitt romney is 30 points behind him. rick santorum is also the projected winner in the great state of minnesota. you can see there, 81% in. mr. santorum in the lead with 45%. mitt romney in third, a distant third after ron paul in second. in colorado at this hour the latest results from that state's equally nonbinding caucuses with 23 persz in. rick santorum and mitt romney are very tight. we'll keep you posted as we learn more.

obviously, i lost a bet. this is an eli manning jersey. he's the quarterback of a football team called the new york giants. they beat my team, the new england patriots, in the super bowl. i thereby lost a bet. it seems like a cruel twist of fate that we lost the game and i have to wear this on set tonight. aaron hernandez did score a

touchdown on the game, so i have to buy everybody on set a beer. i have to lose the bet in both directions. that's how it goes. it's fine. here in new york city they held a ticker-tape parade, the giants floating down the canyon of heroes. there were march bands and people on lunch hour and parents that let their kids pay hooky. in the crowd near city hall they found the willis family. they took the subway in from brooklyn with a big picture of staff sergeant willis. he's now serving in afghanistan. after finishing a tour serving in iraq, his mom told us that another child of her, a daughter served three tours in iraq and is now stationed in germany. she came to the giants parade for her son, a giants fan who celebrated like mad when his team won the super bowl in in 2008 and who i think would have given anything to himself to be in new york today. >> i promised him before we won the first one, i said, when we win the super bowl i'll take

your picture and go down to manhattan just for the parade so that you can be there a part of it. >> wow. >> i know he's happy now, and he's smiling. he loves this. >> we know for a fact that he loves this even without his mom telling us, because p if you look back at the old coverage of the last giants champion sthip in 2008, you will find a daniel willis of brooklyn celebrating telling the paper, i don't know all the words in the dictionary, but i don't think webster has a word to describe how i feel. we know in from his post in afghanistan. he sent this before the game. look. >> how are you doing? my name is staff sergeant danell willis. i want to say hi to my family back in brooklyn and go big blue. >> from afghanistan. after all that he was there today, if only as a picture on his mom's poster downtown. you cannot throw a ticker-tape parade, and they through a

parade for americans from the gulf war. it looks like the giants ride today only with line after line of marching troops. we've heard talk of parades in other cities for veterans of our second war in iraq, but so far only the mighty mighty city of st. louis has thrown one. it started with two ordinary guys and a facebook page. it did not start off as an official response, but the whole city got behind it. they turnd out 100,000 people. the official response in new york has been that now is too soon. with troops like sergeant willis back from iraq but still serving in afghanistan, not now, maybe later. instead the white house is planning a gala dinner for a few hundred veterans to take place in a few weeks. before the super bowl a couple of members of iraq and afghanistan set rans in america put out this video calling for a parade and also a national day of action to help troops find

help if they need it. today we asked glenda willis, a mom with kids that logged four tours rs one still at war, we asked her today about a tick r tape parade for the troops. >> why is there not a parade coming home from iraq sf. >> i don't think we support the veterans. we need to shore more appreciation and compassion for them for the job that they do. >> a little more appreciation, a little more compassion. i know this issue of parades to mark the end of the iraq war is one on which reasonable people can disagree. i also know this issue is not going away. joining us now exclusively for the enter sprue tonight is new york council speaker christine quinn who supports a citywide welcome home for the troops. could you picture a celebrate for the war? >> i was sitting on the stage

out in front of city hall today, and you give each giant a key to city hall. i was thinking how will we do this when we do it for the vet rance of the iraqi war? >> right, right. >> i was thinking we could do one for each member of the service. i thought we should have a family who lost a son or a daughter also from each member of the service come up. but the point is there's a way to do it, and there's a way to make sure these men and women know our gratitude and also know that we're not just grateful. we're really happy they're back and we want to make it easy as possible for them to transition back into city life. now, the way we say we're grateful or we're thrilled or we're happy in new york is with a parade in the canyon of heroes. if there's other ways veterans think we should do it, i'm open to hearing that. what i want is to make sure this moment doesn't pass us by, because if we wait too long, it will pass us by. then the thank you will seem

late and belated, like the birthday card you got from your aunt who forgot. it just don't mean as much. look, i don't think of parades is enough. i think a national call to action needs to be heard. a parade is great, but the really, really best way to say thank you is to make sure when our veterans come back we get work. we help them transition their military experience to civilian resumes and jobs. it has to be all of it together, but you know a parade and a citywide celebration is a great way to start. >> what do you think of the objections it's somehow inappropriate to mark the end of the iraq war given the afghanistan war is still going on and given so many that fought in iraq are fighting in afghanistan. >> i would be compelled by that if veterans were saying that. if there were other people that were veterans speaking for themselves said that, i'm not a veteran. i would say okay. but they are saying they want

this. they are saying this would be helpful, so you know what? let's do an immediate one as it relates to iraq, and god willing very, very soon let's do one for afghanistan. that's what the vets are telling us. if you look back in history when we've ignored their voices about what they needed, what they were feeling, vietnam or whatever, whatever elts, we made mistakes. >> in terms of how this works in new york city, obviously every city across the country that has thought about it has somebody in the city considering it. what happened in st. louis touched a lot of nerves. there's something special about new york. it's not the capital of the country, but it has a role in marking events like no other has. >> you look at the history, the end of world war ii, where are those iconic pictures? men and women kissing in new york city. there's one canyon of heroes in the whole world. >> what needs to happen in order for this to come true in new york? >> for an official new york city

parade up the canyon of heroes it needs to be called by the mayor of the city of new york. >> is he resisting the idea? >> he is. i feel badly with the mayor and checked with the pentagon and said to the department of defense can we do this. they said we don't want cities to do that. that position on the part of the pentagon or dod puts mayors in a tough spot. do you disregard what the federal government has said to you? i think what needs to happen is the federal government or the pentagon needs to change their position and make it okay for cities, if they want it to do this, to do this. i think really, really i believe very strongly if mayor bloomberg got a green light, we would have a parade as quickly as we had this one. >> the mayor is choosing between the generals and grunts. it's a tough position to be in. >> it is, it is. if you have to make a choice, you need to go with the veterans, but i think the pentagon needs to change it it to a green light so there isn't

that difficult position. >> christine quinn, i can't believe eve never been here before. >> i know. >> will you come back? >> absolutely. >> even if if you're not in giants paraphernalia. >> i won't be. i can assure of you that. >> there could be another super bowl win. i'm just saying. >> please keep us aapprised, and i'd love to follow this. >> i know it means a lot to the veterans you took it on so seriously. thank you. >> we have a winner in one of the nonbinding republicans tonight. for what it's worth, we have a nonbinding winner. that's coming right up, and i'm taking this off.

behold an attempt to invoke the amish bus driver rule on national television before 8:00 a.m. on a day after a day spent in bed with the flu. >> is there traction to this? is this an issue that lasts well into the election or campaign or something that fizzles out? >> i think this is going to fizzle out. if there's a bus driver opening and you're amish, nobody says

can't apply for that because you're amish. if you get the job and say you can't drive this bus, i'm amish. sorry, you have to be able to drive. if it's health insurance, it includes contraception. >> do not try this at home. the amish bus driver analogy invoked by a trained professional on a closed course. we'll be right back.

one way to tell where candidates think they're going to do well on election night is where they plan to come where the results come in.

rick santorum tonight in st. charles, missouri because he knew ahead of time he would have a good chance of winning the missouri primary. nbc news has just declared him the winner there. mr. santorum, of course, helped in winning mosby the fact na newt gingrich was not on the ballot there. it was the first national test of a republican primary with only one non-mitt romney republican, non-ron paul alternative. mr. gingrich is not in any states that hold contests tonight, which is his way to say i'm expecting to go over three. my question is does it matter? mitt romney is going to be in colorado. he expects to do well in colorado. he won that state with 60% of the vote that time around. athat didn't help in the long run, fb. he lost the republican primary in 2008, and then barack obama beat john mccain nationally and in the state of colorado by nine points in the 2008 election. one of the other interest thing that is happened in colorado in the '08 election is that they

voted on one of these personhood amendments that define a fertilized egg as a person. it is in effect a total ban on abortion and a likely ban on hormonal forms of birth control, things like the iud or birth control pill. they rejected that by a 3-1 margin. it lost by 36 points. lots of other statewide democratic candidates do really well. maybe that was a 2008 thing. maybe that was a left-leaning electorate that didn't like the personhood thing. that's what the anti-abortion, anti-birth control personhood people were counting on, so they put the same thing on the ballot again in colorado two years later for 2010, which, of course, was a huge republican year nationwide and over all a much better year for republicans in colorado. in 2010 asked to vote to this thing that would ban all abortion and probably all hormonal birth control, colorado residents took a second look at

it two years later, a more republican leaning electorate this time around and they decided in 2010 no again, no, no, no by nearly the same margin. it lost by 42 points in 2010, and that was in the 2010 election which was a very republican red tide coast to coast. not only did this anti-contraception and anti-abortion thing fail by a huge margin but the one thought to be a shoo-in lost as well. remember this guy, ken buck? ken buck in his primary campaign when he was competing for the nomination said he was in favor the personhood thing. even in the reddest possible year colorado looked at that and said no. are you crazy? no. the democrat was able to point out how crazy that was, and theres aboutdy beat republican ken buck. >> as a doctor i try to protect

the health of women. that's what i do. that's why i'm very disturbed by ken buck. ken buck would ban common forms of birth control, and ken buck wants to make abortion illegal even in cases of rape and incest. as far as i'm concerned, ken buck is just too extreme for colorado. >> since ken has supported criminalizing abortion in cases of rape and incest, my question is who goes to jail, ken? >> that's why we have a senator michael bennet, democrat of colorado and not a senator ken buck. because being super extreme on abortion and being against contraception is not a tenable electoral position in america. in any state in the united states of america. this past november having lost twice in colorado, the people who want to ban hormonal contraception and all abortions decided to take their case to a friendlier environment. maybe colorado is too liberal in a year like 2010. they decided to put it on the ballot in mississippi.

good move. doesn't get any redder than that. mississippi also rejected it by double digits by a 16-point margin. that was in november. since then every republican up the losing de of that argument. the anti-abortion, anti-birth control position that couldn't win in mississippi. every republican running has adopted that as their national platform, and that is the remarkable and relevant context for understanding this current furor over whether or not contraceptions have to be covered on american health insurance plans. 28 states already require health insurance plans to cover contraceptives. eight states require health insurance to have cover contraceptives without exempt shuns even for churches or religious institutions and even catholic hospitals and universities that are not located in one of the 28 states required to cover contraception as part of the health insurance coverage for employees do so. this is a huge political scandal

because of the way it plays into the presidential race. this decision was made by the administration in the middle of last month more than two weeks ago without a giant political controversy swirling around it right away. after it already happened, newt gingrich startsed to bring it up after the fact. that reflected a two-part calculation on his part. i think mr. gingrich has decided he's desperate enough that he's willing to be the guy lecturing the country on what it is to be a good catholic. he's more famous if for his adultery than anything else about him. he also wanted to draw mitt romney into this thing. just as newt gingrich knows what he's doing when he calls the first african-american president a food stamp president, i think he knows what nerve he's hitting when he says that. i think he knows what nerve he's hitting when he draws the man who is the first major party candidate who is mormon into discussion of religious values. so newt gingrich brings it up after the fact and gets mitt romney talking about religion

every single day and he boxes mitt romney in because whether mitt romney was governor of massachusetts, he did not exempt catholic hospitals from having to provide emergency contraception to rape victims. so now newt gingrich has him talking about religion on the stump every day and nail him as a hypocrite who can't be trusted on the issue. that's how the politics here are working for newt gingrich. i will close this with a plea to my friends in the media. just because it works politically for newt gingrich and because the democrats are godless epitaph is tried and true for republicans, it doesn't mean there's more to the story. there will be in this one, too, but the sxwloort of voters in the last election and probably in this one, too, the majority of voters are women and 99% of american women have used birth control and 98% of the catholic women use birth control. as republican candidates keep

trying to pass more and more extreme anti-abortion litmus tests they have gone to far right on not just abortion but on contraception they're significantly to the right of even the electric rate of the state of mississippi on this issue. the beltway pundit class says the white house is in trouble on this. reality check, guys, okay? where the white house is on this issue is here. hey, women of america, under a democratic president your birth control pills will be covered by health insurance. if you don't have health insurance, you can go to a clinic and get subsidized birth control there. if if a republican is elected president your insurance may not cover birlt control and if you are don't center insurance at all, there are no clinics to go to anymore to get birth control pills. planned parenthood, defunded. title 10, it's the government money that subsidizes that stuff, gone altogether. you can't get it from insurance or a clinic, which means you pay cash out of pocket, retail cost

for your birth control prescription. on top of what you pay for health care and insurance, american womens plan another 600 to $1200 a year cash outlay every year to stay on birth control. if you're not lucky, you live in a state where birth control has been declared illegal. so do you want a democratic president or a republican president, women of america? i realize that a lot of 60-something male pundits think bad politics from the democrats on the catholic side. there is another way to look at it.

four years ago today mitt romney dropped out of the race for the republican president am nomination. ron paul stuck it out another three months after that, by by this night four years ago it was clear john mccain was going to be the republican nominee. mitt romney desperately wants to be in that position john mccain was in four years ago tonight,